Preface to Student Study Guide and Solutions Manual

How to Use the Student Study Guide and Solutions Manual for Organic Chemistry

Organic chemistry is much like bicycle riding. You cannot learn how to ride a bike by watching other people ride bikes. Some people might fool themselves into believing that it’s possible to become an expert bike rider without ever getting on a bike.

But you know that to be incorrect (and very naïve). In order to learn how to ride a bike, you must be willing to get on the bike, and you must be willing to fall. With time (and dedication), you can quickly train yourself to avoid falling and to ride the bike with ease and confidence.

The same is true of organic chemistry. In order to become proficient at solving problems, you must “ride the bike”. You must try to solve the problems yourself (without the solutions manual open in front of you).

Once you have solved the problems, this book will allow you to check your solutions. If, however, you don’t attempt to solve each problem on your own, and instead, you read the problem statement and then immediately read the solution, you are only hurting yourself.

You are not learning how to avoid falling. Many students make this mistake every year. They use the solutions manual as a crutch, and then they never really attempt to solve the problems on their own.

It really is like believing that you can become an expert bike rider by watching hundreds of people riding bikes. The world doesn’t work that way! The textbook has thousands of problems to solve.

Each of these problems should be viewed as an opportunity to develop your problem‐solving skills. By reading a problem statement and then reading the solution immediately (without trying to solve the problem yourself), you are robbing yourself of the opportunity provided by the problem.

If you repeat that poor study habit too many times, you will not learn how to solve problems on your own, and you will not get the grade that you want.

Why do so many students adopt this bad habit (of using the solutions manual too liberally)? The answer is simple. Students often wait until a day or two before the exam, and then they spend all night cramming. Sound familiar? Unfortunately, organic chemistry is the type of course where cramming is insufficient because you need time in order to ride the bike yourself.

You need time to think about each problem until you have developed a solution on your own. For some problems, it might take days before you think of a solution. This process is critical for learning this subject.

Make sure to allot time every day for studying organic chemistry, and use this book to check your solutions. This book has also been designed to serve as a study guide, as described below.

What is New in the Student Study Guide and Solutions Manual for Organic Chemistry

This book contains more than just solutions to all of the problems in the textbook. Each chapter of this book also contains a series of exercises that will help you review the concepts, skills, and reactions presented in the corresponding chapter of the textbook.

These exercises are designed to serve as study tools that can help you identify your weak areas. Each chapter of this solutions manual/study guide has the following parts:

Review of Concepts. These exercises are designed to help you identify which concepts are the least familiar to you. Each section contains sentences with missing words (blanks). Your job is to fill in the blanks, demonstrating mastery of the concepts.

To verify that your answers are correct, you can open your textbook to the end of the corresponding chapter, where you will find a section entitled Review of Concepts and Vocabulary. In that section, you will find each of the sentences, verbatim

Review of Skills. These exercises are designed to help you identify which skills are the least familiar to you. Each section contains exercises in which you must demonstrate mastery of the skills developed in the SkillBuilders of the corresponding textbook chapter.

To verify that your answers are correct, you can open your textbook to the end of the corresponding chapter, where you will find a section entitled SkillBuilder Review. In that section, you will find the answers to each of these exercises.

Review of Reactions.

These exercises are designed to help you identify which reagents are not at your fingertips. Each section contains exercises in which you must demonstrate familiarity with the reactions covered in the textbook.

Your job is to fill in the reagents necessary to achieve each reaction. To verify that your answers are correct, you can open your textbook to the end of the corresponding chapter, where you will find a section entitled Review of Reactions.

In that section, you will find the answers to each of these exercises.

Common Mistakes to Avoid. This is a new feature of this edition. The most common student mistakes are described so that you can avoid them when solving problems.

A-List of Useful Reagents. This is a new feature of this edition. This list provides a review of the reagents that appear in each chapter, as well as a description of how each reagent is used.

Solutions. At the end of each chapter, you’ll find detailed solutions to all problems in the textbook, including all SkillBuilders, conceptual checkpoints, additional problems, integrated problems, and challenge problems.

The sections described above have been designed to serve as useful tools as you study and learn organic chemistry. Good luck!